A ghost and a naked singularity; facing our demons

We encounter these demons on the path towards a UV complete QFT of gravity and a horizonless replacement for black holes. The fate of the ghost is discussed in the strong coupling version of classically-scale-invariant quadratic gravity. Rather than a propagating ghost, the full graviton propagator ends up with a slight acausal behavior. We then turn to the 2-2-hole solutions appearing in a classical approximation of the gravity theory. We present a new solution that is sourced by a relativistic gas, where a benign timelike singularity is shrouded by a fireball. Calculating the standard entropy gives an area law, and the entropy of a 2-2-hole can exceed that of the same size black hole. Finally, an observational consequence of 2-2-holes takes the form of gravitational wave echoes that can be generated by a newly formed 2-2-hole after a 2-2-hole merger. LIGO is sensitive to such a signal. We update the evidence from our previous search with five additional events reported more recently by LIGO.Comment: 13 pages, 23 figures, talk given at CERN workshop "Scale Invariance in Particle Physics and Cosmology", Jan 28 - Feb 1, 201

A QCD analogy for quantum gravity

Quadratic gravity presents us with a renormalizable, asymptotically free theory of quantum gravity. When its couplings grow strong at some scale, as in QCD, then this strong scale sets the Planck mass. QCD has a gluon that does not appear in the physical spectrum. Quadratic gravity has a spin-2 ghost that we conjecture does not appear in the physical spectrum. We discuss how the QCD analogy leads to this conjecture and to the possible emergence of general relativity. Certain aspects of the QCD path integral and its measure are also similar for quadratic gravity. With the addition of the Einstein-Hilbert term, quadratic gravity has a dimensionful parameter that seems to control a quantum phase transition and the size of a mass gap in the strong phase.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures, matches published versio

Nuclear-size effects and a numerical approach to the Dirac equation

Due to some current interest in this subject we have produced this note. There is no claim to anything new, except possibly to show that a direct numerical approach is quite simple and instructive. For comparison purposes we include a section on the Coulomb Klein-Gordon equation.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Gravitational Wave "Echo" Spectra

Exotic compact objects may resemble black holes very closely while remaining horizonless. They may be distinguished from black holes because they effectively give rise to a resonant cavity for the propagation of low frequency gravity waves. In a Green's function approach, the resonance structure appears in a transfer function. The transfer function in turn is modulated by an initial-condition-dependent source integral to obtain the observed spectrum. We find that the source integral displays universal factors that tend to enhance low and negative frequencies, and this increases the complexity of the waveforms in the time domain. These waveforms also display a significant sensitivity to initial conditions. For these reasons a standard matched-filter search strategy is difficult. In contrast, the sharp and evenly spaced resonance spectrum presents a much more robust signal to target. It persists even in the absence of simple echoes. We also describe an additional two-component structure of this resonance pattern.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Not quite black holes at LIGO

We provide more evidence of not quite black holes at LIGO. We update and streamline our previous search strategy and apply it to the ten black hole merger events and the one neutron star merger event. The strategy is aimed at the evenly spaced resonance spectrum expected from not quite black holes, given that at low frequencies the radial wave equation describes the modes of a stretched 1D cavity. We describe various indications of the self-consistency of the apparent signals across all events in the context of a simple theoretical model. The merger with the largest final mass, spin and redshift, GW170729, provides additional interesting support.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, published versio

Ultra-Planckian scattering from a QFT for gravity

We show that astonishing cancellations take place in the calculation of high-energy scattering cross-sections in quantum quadratic gravity, a quantum field theory for gravity. Tree-level differential cross-sections, either exclusive or minimally inclusive, behave as $1/E^2$, as desired for a well-behaved UV completion. We argue that ultra-Planckian scattering involves gravitational parton showers, both in the initial and final states. Differential cross sections are calculated for the various hard scattering processes involving the various spin states of the massless and massive gravi-particles. We also discuss some of the simpler amplitudes. Unitarity without positivity is the key property of the perturbative theory.Comment: 23 pages, no figure

Gravitational wave echoes through new windows

There has been a striking realization that physics resolving the black hole information paradox could imply postmerger gravitational wave echoes. We here report on evidence for echoes from the LIGO compact binary merger events, GW151226, GW170104, GW170608, GW170814, as well as the neutron star merger GW170817. There is a signal for each event with a $p$-value of order 1% or sometimes significantly less. Our study begins with the comparison of echoes from a variety of horizonless exotic compact objects. Next we investigate the effects of spin. The identification of the more generic features of echoes then leads to the development of relatively simple windowing methods, in both time and frequency space, to extract a signal from noise. The time delay between echoes is inversely related to the spacing between the spectral resonances, and it is advantageous to look directly for this resonance structure. We find time delays for the first four events that are consistent with a simple model that accounts for mass and spin of the final object, while for the neutron star merger the final mass and spin are constrained.Comment: 37 pages, 19 figures, matches version to be published in PR

Searches for the t′t^\prime of a fourth family

We study the detection of the $t^\prime$ of a fourth family during the early running of LHC with 7 TeV collision energy and 1 fb$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity. By use of a neural network we show that it is feasible to search for the $t'$ even with a mass close to the unitarity upper bound, which is in the 500 to 600 GeV range. We also present results for the Tevatron with $10 \,\, \textrm{fb}^{-1}$. In both cases the search for a fourth family quark doublet can be significantly enhanced if one incorporates the contribution that the $b'$ can make to a $t'$-like signal. Thus the bound on the mass of a degenerate quark doublet should be stronger than the bounds obtained by treating $t'$ and $b'$ in isolation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 eps figures, 5 Tables, publication versio

Not quite black holes as dark matter

Primordial black holes that survive until the present have been considered as a dark matter candidate. In this paper we argue that primordial 2-2-hole remnants provide a more promising and testable option. 2-2-holes arise in quadratic gravity as a new family of classical solutions for ultracompact matter distributions and they possess the black hole exterior without an event horizon. They may serve as the endpoint of gravitational collapse, providing a resolution for the information loss problem. Intriguing thermodynamic behavior is found for these objects when sourced by a thermal gas. A large 2-2-hole radiates with a Hawking-like temperature and exhibits an entropy-area law. At a late stage, the evaporation slows down and essentially stops as the mass asymptotically approaches a minimal value. This remnant mass is determined by a fundamental scale in quadratic gravity. We study the cosmological and astrophysical implications of having these remnants as dark matter and derive the corresponding constraints. A distinctive phenomenon associated with remnant mergers occurs, predicting fluxes of high-energy astrophysical particles due to the spectacular evaporation of the merger product. Measurements of high-energy photon and neutrino fluxes could possibly bound the remnant mass to be not far above the Planck mass. Early-universe physics, on the other hand, requires that 2-2-holes quickly evolve into the remnant state after formation, putting an upper bound on the formation mass.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure

Unruh-DeWitt Detector Differentiation of Black Holes and Exotic Compact Objects

We study the response of a static Unruh-DeWitt detector outside an exotic compact object (ECO) with a general reflective boundary condition in 3+1 dimensions. The horizonless ECO, whose boundary is extremely close to the would-be event horizon, acts as a black hole mimicker. We find that the response rate is notably distinct from the black hole case, even when the ECO boundary is perfectly absorbing. For a (partially) reflective ECO boundary, we find resonance structures in the response rate that depend on the different locations of the ECO boundary and those of the detector. We provide a detailed analysis in connection with the ECO's vacuum mode structure and transfer function.Comment: 18 pages, 22 figure